Upload
others
View
8
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
“The Bomb Drop was reported to haveGood Effects” by the U.S. Air Force:
Bombing a Village Market in Baghran,Helmand on August 2, 2007
by
Marc W. HeroldDept. of Economics
Whittemore School of Business & EconomicsUniversity of New Hampshire
Durham, N.H. 03824U.S.A.
E-mail: [email protected]
August 11, 2007
The “August 2: Airpower Summary” posted on the official website of the United States
Air Force (USAF) announced, “An Air Force B-1B Lancer dropped guided bomb unit-
31s on enemies hiding in a tree line near Baghran. The bomb drop was reported to have
good effects.”1 But, on the ground, reality was rather different: Gul Wali, 18, was among
the wounded. “Bombs were falling everywhere from the sky into the trees, and I saw
pieces of flesh and bone. These were villagers. They were innocent people. They had just
come to the mela [outdoor traditional weekly market] to buy food for their families.
Instead, they ended up looking for their loved ones among piles of bodies.” In the
absence of normal shops, most communities mount a weekly trade fair, bringing
handicrafts, livestock, farm produce and clothing along to barter or sell. The mela was
1 at http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123063263
Published by Traprock Peace Center http://www.traprockpeace.organd PeaceJournal.org http://www.peacejournal.org
2
located close to the holy shrine of Ibrahim Shah Baba. Wali’s reference to a line of trees
corresponds perfectly with the account given in the US Air Force’s Airpower Summary.
The luckier ones ended up in a hospital, as this young 10-year old boy with abdominal
shrapnel wounds and whose leg needed to be amputated:
Photo from Emergency Hospital in Lashkar Gah, athttp://www.peacereporter.net/dettaglio_photogallery.php?idc=11&ida=&idt=&idp=210&page=2&idimm=1
For its part, the U.S. military in Bagram released an official statement proclaiming,
3
During a sizable meeting of senior Taliban commanders, coalition forces
employed precision-guided munitions on their location after ensuring
there were no innocent Afghans in the surrounding area.2
This type of statement is intended to “grab the news headlines” before any contrary
account gets publicly offered, a deliberate ploy of the US/NATO militaries.3 The
corporate mainstream media from the New York Times to Britain’s Telegraph and
Xinhuanet dutifully reproduced the pronouncement. Faced with contradicting information
from the bombed region, the militaries respond with a sequence of tactics: stonewall and
cordon-off the bomb site; admit civilians might have been killed, adding contrived tales
(Taliban were hiding amongst civilians or bombed must have really been Taliban because
no female casualties), and then simply wait for the story to go away.4
If there were no civilians, then how to explain wounded such as in these photos?
Reporters haven’t been permitted to talk to the injured and they are under heavy guard as
part of news management in order to prevent them making known the truth of this
slaughter. Moreover, the truth is prevented by a geographic isolation: the U.S. bombing
often takes place in rugged, isolated regions, largely inaccessible or only at great risk.
Hence, the U.S. and NATO feel much freer to bomb indiscriminately and answer
questions later.5
Fifty percent of the GBU-31 (Mark 84) bombs dropped upon Bughni are estimated to fall
within a 13 meter radius of the target; and the lethal blast or fragmentation range radius
out from the point of impact is 400 yards (or 366 meters). Dropping such munitions upon
a village area is guaranteed to cause death and injury. Listen to an official description,
2 Emphasis added by the author.3 Something I have explored in my essay, ““Grab News Headlines, Isolate Bombed Area and Stonewall:U.S. Military’s Virtual Reality about Afghan Civilian Casualties. A Case Study of the U.S. Assault uponHajiyan” (May 28, 2006) at: http://www.traprockpeace.org/marc_herold_hajiyan_24may06.pdf4 I examined earlier U.S. operations in Baghran in “Et Plus Ca Change…Patterns of Death and Deceit inAfghanistan,” Cursor.org (March 10, 2003) at http://cursor.org/stories/morethingschange.htm5 U.S. and NATO bombs rained down before upon civilians in Baghran in February 2003 (see my “A Rainof Bombs,” in Frontline at http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2319/stories/20061006000306100.htm ) andin June 2006 (see http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mwherold/GuAhmadmotherandfather.htm).
4
Dropped from a plane and hurtling toward its target at 300 mph, the 14-
foot steel bomb uses small gears in its fins to pinpoint its path based on
satellite data received by a small antenna and fed into a computer. Just
before impact, a fusing device triggers a chemical reaction causing the 14-
inch-wide weapon to swell to twice its size. The steel casing shatters,
shooting forth 1,000 pounds of white-hot fragments traveling at speeds of
6,000 feet per second. The explosion creates a shock wave exerting
thousands of pounds of pressure per square inch (psi). By comparison, a
shock wave of 12 psi will knock a person down; and the injury threshold is
15 pounds psi. The pressure from the explosion of a device such as the
Mark-84 JDAM can rupture lungs, burst sinus cavities and tear off limbs
hundreds of feet from the blast site, according to trauma physicians. When
it hits, the JDAM generates an 8,500-degree fireball, gouges a 20-foot
crater as it displaces 10,000 pounds of dirt and rock and generates enough
wind to knock down walls blocks away and hurl metal fragments a mile or
more. "There is a very great concussive effect. Damage to any human
beings in the vicinity would be pretty nasty," said Rob Hewson of Jane's.
"A 2,000-pound bomb has an effective damage radius of at least 800
meters (about 2,600 feet)." 6
The 1,000kg Mark 84 Joint Direct Attack Munition (J-DAM) generates a massive fireball
and shockwave which also unleashes nearly 500kg of superheated steel fragments, killing
anyone within 120 meters and causing injuries out to 1,000 meters. When the US/NATO
drops such a bomb upon a populated area, the killing is intentional, that is, it is murder,
putting the lie to the oft-repeated assertion that while Taliban kill “intentionally”, the
occupiers kill civilians “unintentionally.” Moreover, haven’t the Taliban warned people
to stay away from occupation army bases, patrols, and employment?
6 Mark Sauer, “Precision JDAMs Can Pack Big Punch: On-Board Systems Guide Air-to-SurfaceWeapons,” San Diego Tribune (March 21, 2003) at http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030321-jdam01.htm
5
On that fateful afternoon of August 2nd, hundreds of people had gathered for the
traditional weekly market (or ‘mela’) in Bughni (or Bagh-e-Nahi) where local people
trade everything from carpets, foods, clothes, to cows. Market day there falls on
Thursday, the start of Afghanistan’s weekend. Then, suddenly, the U.S. Boeing-made
GBU-31, GPS-guided 2,000 pound bombs fell from the blue sky.
Panic erupted. Many villagers said they lost fathers, brothers, and children in the inferno.
Others ferried their wounded to hospitals in the province, providing concrete evidence
that simple civilians had been injured and massacred. Some injured were transferred to a
clinic in Musa Qala, 100 kms away from Bughni; others were taken to Kandahar, 150
kms away; and yet others were brought to Lashkar Gah, 200 kms away.
Eyewitnesses told gruesome tales of headless bodies piled high in Bughni waiting for
identification. A resident, Hafizullah, said, “It was a day of blackness. Almost everyone
had lost someone. People did not know where their family members were. I saw people
6
just sitting on the ground, staring at nothing. There was mourning everywhere.” Another
resident added, “We grew tired of collecting the dead.”
At least 20 civilians (including an 8-yr-old boy) with shrapnel wounds were brought to
the main Bost hospital in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital. Three of the injured men
died there. Helmand's police chief, Mohammad Hussein Andiwal said. "I can confirm
there were heavy bombardments," Andiwal told Reuters by phone. "We have heard of
heavy casualties too and have sent a team to investigate this." A provincial lawmaker in
Kabul, Mohammad Anwar, also received reports of high civilian casualties. In the
Lashkar Gah hospital, Shokhi Khan, a relative of one of the wounded, said several
hundred civilians were killed or wounded in the strikes. He said people had gathered for
picnics and to go to a shrine in Baghran district north of Lashkar Gah on Thursday when
the raids started. Twelve wounded men were brought to a hospital in the main southern
city of Kandahar, said Sharifullah Khan, a doctor there. Nasibullah, one of the wounded
men in Kandahar hospital, said the bombs hit a market. He claimed there were no Taliban
there at the time of the attack. An Afghan Defense Ministry said some 40 men had also
been brought to hospital in the main southern city of Kandahar. Other injured persons
were brought to hospitals in Sangin and Musa Qala districts.
Abdul Karim, a resident of Baghran, recounted, “Many died on the way. One of my sons
is in Bost Hospital. I don’t think he will survive. Two other sons are in Musa Qala. Two
of my cousins were killed and two more were injured.”
When the claim that no civilians had been bombed could no longer be sustained, a back-
up lie was floated by the military, playing upon general public ignorance. Charlie Mayo
was the carrier. "It is interesting there were no females," said British Lieutenant-Colonel
Charlie Mayo in Helmand Province, suggesting the wounded adult males may have been
Taliban fighters. "We are very confident we hit a large meeting of Taliban and they are
very sore about it."
7
But the village of Bughni has long been a Taliban-controlled area where no doubt Sharia
prevails and women simply do not attend public gatherings or go out shopping (hence no
female victims). Who are you fooling, Lt-Col. Charlie Mayo?
The local (Afghan) attempt at obfuscation was a little less subtle. General Zahir Azimy of
the Afghan Defense Ministry put forth the U.S-pleasing lie – no evidence whatsoever
offered - that a large gathering of Taliban attending a public execution had been bombed,
killing over 100 Taliban and three senior commanders including Commander Mansoor
Dadullah. Azimy added, "According to our sources, there were 150 people killed, maybe
less, but not more," he told a news conference. "If there were civilian casualties, they
were very limited and should not exceed 10."7 Since the attack, Mansoor Dadullah has
given several media interviews. The evidence of very high civilian casualties is
incontrovertible now. How many more accounts from residents are needed? How many
more gruesome photos of injured young boys and old men? The general needs to go back
to the drawing boards (or U.S. tutorials).
Are these persons Taliban?
7 Hamid Shalizi, “Few Civilian Deaths from Afghan Bombing – Officials,” Reuters (August 4, 2007) athttp://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSISL7315720070804?feedType=RSS
8
Several family members who accompanied the bombing victims seeking treatment gave
accounts describing their personal situation. Haji Hakim Jan, 27, said the U.S. bombs
killed four of his brothers. Jan added, “I had another brother of mine and an eight-year-
old sister wounded in the bombing.” He said that such deaths alienate civilians from
Western troops and make people join the Taliban resistance.8
The attention by the mainstream corporate media to twenty-one captured South Korean
evangelists as compared to the Afghan civilians slaughtered in Helmand is revealing. The
villagers of Bagh-e-Nahi are indeed very sore in ways more than one about what
happened between 3-4 P.M. on August 2nd. But then, of course, Afghan civilians killed
by the US/NATO are bad bodies, unlike dead South Korean civilians who are good
bodies. The U.S. Pentagon, the U.S. corporate press, and Human Rights Watch only
“see” and count good bodies.
8 Abdul Qodus, ”Afghans Check Reports of Civilian Bombing Deaths,” Reuters (2:23 PM EDT August 3,2007)